5 year olds hitting and fighting

My ds(5) has been hit all through the year by 2 children at his school and there is a lot of fighting generally. One of the children is quite disturbed and bullies ds and other children, and also talks about quite disturbing subjects. The other child hits out when emotionally charged but there is no intentional bullying. My ds is not perfect, he sometimes doesn't concentrate or do what he is told and is fairly mischievous, but has not been violent before. He is ahead with work but he is young emotionally, although up until recently improving all the time. His class had the most wonderful teacher who very sadly left at Christmas and has been replaced by a nq who has not coped and the problems (fighting and other poor behaviour) have not been managed at all well and have become really quite significant problems. I have tried talking to the teacher and tried to find out about strategies etc but she basically just blames the children, adhd or whatever. We are moving and so moving schools and so I am just trying to get through the last weeks.

The issue is that my ds has started hitting other children at an after school club, in the last few weeks. On one occasion he pulled back a girl's fingers until she said "ow", he hit too hard when playing tag, and when a couple of kids teased him by snatching a ball he thumped one of them in the face. 2 weeks ago he started a fight with another boy and I had to go in and separate them. The other boy had been pushing all the other children and annoying ds all year, and ds has usually either pushed back once and left it or walked away before now. This time, ds started the fight. I pulled him out of the class, took him to one side, told him it was unacceptable behaviour, to calm down, and ds was then fine for the rest of the class. DS was then worried about going back and I told him that it was fine as long as it didn't happen again. However, DS seemed to see red almost as soon as he saw the other boy, and with the smallest provocation they started to fight again.

I am really worried about it. The after school club teacher feels sure it is because of what has happened at his school, and that once his self esteem picks up again he will be fine. A part of me thinks this, and but a part of me is really worried. I have seen children hit my ds at softplay before, and my ds' hand go up and he then thinks about it and lowers hand, which I have always been really pleased about, but it seems now he is right at the edge of what he can cope with and is on the attack.

At home he is mostly fine. When out and about he is mostly fine, although last week when out he got angry twice about things which wouldn't normally make him angry.

I'm not surprised you're worried about this. My son is 5 too, and I would never expect him to be hit at school 'all through the year'! The odd occasion is understandable( and should be robustly dealt with at the time), but this has gone on for far too long, and it's the school's fault. The fact that your son has started behaving out of character at school and at home is very concerning. I'd go in to school with your son's Dad and say that you're concerned that your son is stressed at school due to the unchecked aggressive behaviour of other children in the year, and that you want to know how the school are going to make this better for him. It sounds like he's trying to adapt to the aggression by being aggressive himself, when he should be feeling protected at school!

I'd also be tempted to speak to the head actually, given that his teacher is an nqt. She obviously needs some support with behaviour management. And perhaps more support with the adhd-affected children.

I would be putting firm consequences in place for him. Perhaps he's seeing other children get away with this behaviour in the classroom so is almost modelling behaviour - some teachers are reluctant to discipline ADHD kids and give them boundaries - they seem to other kids to be rewarded for their bad behaviour. It's a difficult balance that's happened with my own ADHD dc.

I would reiterate the rules to him, kinds hands ect. Perhaps start with a sticke each day if he can use his kind hands/feet/mouth then a wk of stickers get a small treat.